If you leave it you could end up like me or worse. i had the chain rattle and it would come and go then one cold morning i guess the hydralic tensioner stuck and the next thing that happened was the engine just stopped, no bang or crunching or anything. Well being a licenced mechanic since 1978 i figuired i would do the chain job myself as i have done maybe a 1000 timing chains in my life on various motors. First pick up hayne's manual, gasket set and start to pull it apart. Well after 4 hours of removing hoses, ect. i see some damage, the front chain tensioners were completely broken apart, well not as bad as i thought... well lets look at the other chains and tensioners... whats this? you must remove the motor to do the timing chains. this is crazy! Well after pulling the motor and getting to the heart of the problem, every tensioner had broken apart or was in pieces. Off to the dealer 535.00 later in chains and tensioners another 300.00 in head set and bolts 300.00 for 5 exhaust and 2 intake valves 4 guides and then the surprise of my life, i needed 400.00 special tools set to set cam timing and 240.00 labour at the machine shop for the guide and vale replacement. Adding up the new oil,trans fliud,anti freeze, plugs ect. i am well over 2g's in parts. and 3 weekends of my time. What a pitiful design for an engine. The parts i recieved have been superseeded 3 times since new so there is a bigger problem in design than ford is letting on. i bought my trac used with 105,000kms on it and it looked like the dealership had done the timing recall at sometime before i got it. The trac has 180,000kms on it when this problem happened. Well thats my horror story hope it helps you decide whether to fix or leave it.
